COM 0022.069 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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i ~ D~ Councilman K. Angel Pilago & V~'~ y~,;,~ Zsb~~ HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL MEMBERS 25 Aupuni St. Hilo. Hawaii 96720 Dear County Council Members: We are against Bill 4, Draft 5 relating to Animal Control. There are many things that need to be addressed before passing such a bill. People need to address barking dogs within their own community and community/subdivision associations. Properties bought with covenant codes protect buyers from having to deal with crowing roosters, barking dogs and other problems. NO ONE addresses CATS and that is a BIG PROBLEM for us as dog owners of this county. CATS are allowed to rsn free, and there is no leash laws for cats. There is nothing worse than waking up to heaz cats fighting in the middle of the night or listening to tom cats call in their mates. Our neighbor's cat runs on our stone wall enticing our dogs to bazk, and also poops in our yard and in our bonsai plants that causes our plants to die. There are many cats left loose only to be seen flattened on the roads. How fair is that to animals? Dogs were meant to bark and there are ,your first warning sign that someone is around your property that shouldn't be there. In this day of rising burglary rates, a dog(s) keeps people from coming nn to your property that have no business being there. Our dogs are our burglaz alarms. We need them to bark whenever strangers park in front of our house on the county road and drink at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. We would not know they were out there if our dogs didn't bazk. These drinkers break bottles on the county road and leave their trash for us to clean up. People walk down our street at 4:00 a.m. and the dogs bark to alert us that someone is walking around at that hour. With the dogs, we feel safe. They give us an early warning sign that something isn't right. Raising fees to bail out dogs at the Humane Society will only make the Humane Society's job harder and end up having to put more animals to sleep. Many people would not bail their dogs out if the fees are too high, perhaps breaking hearts of their children who love the dogs. People like that would probably just get another dog instead of paying to bail out the older one. More dogs ending up in the shelter means more cost to the people of this County to support their animal control program. 2 ,i. Comm. No. Ref. To: Ref. Date